Sanctum

Sanctum in detail

Each Sanctum session is uniquely designed to your specific requirements and stress elevels.  A typical session includes an optimal combination of:

Stress biofeedback.  This is done to indicate and quantify levels of stress and more importantly facilitates the mind-body connection in order to reduce and manage stress. With stress biofeedback you can access, achieve and maintain higher levels of psycho-physiological coherence.

The rest of the session is facilitated with your body reclined in an anatomically correct position at the point of zero gravity, while enveloped in a tactile sound experience. This is facilitated with a specialised recliner, which immediately alleviates pressure on all the spinal and joint components, relieves muscle strain, increase lung capacity, reduce pressure on the heart and increase blood oxygen levels through improved systemic circulation.

Pressure is applied, at certain points during a session, on specific stress bearing body areas, including the face, neck, shoulders and feet, which alleviates tension and facilitate intense relaxation.

Towards the end of the session, neural-brainwave-frequency entrainment is facilitated, through the use of an auditory-visual stimulation system.  This is individually tailored to your requirements, aimed at achieving and maintaining desired states of deep relaxation, cognitive and/or memory enhancement, advance focus and/or attention improvement.

Stress explained:

Stress is defined as a non-specific reaction of an organism to any pressure or demand.  In other words stress is the way in which or how we react to stressors. Stressors being pressurised demands, occurrences or happenings.

Regardless of the source or type of stressor, the human body has a singular, systemic and methodical response to stress.  It drastically lowers the activity of immediate non-crucial processes e.g. superficial circulation, digestion and immunity.  It increases systemic secretion of adrenaline, noradrenalin and cortisol, which are the fight or flight hormones. It increases heart rate, cardiac output, blood pressure, breathing rate, muscle contraction, output of blood cholesterol, insulin levels, systemic blood sugar release (to fuel muscles) and brain wave activity.

The human body was designed to effectively utilise this singular response to stress, for optimal survival, through short bursts of either ‘fighting’ or ‘fleeing’ and then to immediately after, return to a point of non-stressed stasis.  In our modern day- to-day activities, we internalise these natural stress reactions and hold or store it in our bodies.

If the human body is placed in extended periods of stress, it causes severe degradation of the autonomic nervous and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal- gland systems.  These are the nerve- and hormone- systems or autonomic command centers of the human body.  Prolonged periods of stress eventually cause degradation and disruption of the functioning of all body systems, which in turn results in dis-ease and un-welness.

Stress biofeedback explained:

Biofeedback is a form of complementary medicine which involves measuring physiological processes e.g. blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, galvanic skin response (sweating) or muscle tension and conveying such information back to the person in real-time, in order to raise awareness and conscious control of the applicable physiological processes.

Stress biofeedback provides real-time access to information of physiological processes and how these processes of the body relate and respond to stressors.  This allows the person to gain control of these physiological processes, previously unaware of and considered automatic.  Gaining active control of physiological processes, speed up recovery from stress reactions.

Small variations, between normal heart beats, occur with every in and out breath due to the effect on the heart of two major branches of the autonomic nervous system and decrease slightly with each in breath and increase slightly with each out breath.  These small beat-to-beat variations are referred to as heart rate variability (HRV).  Also refer to Psycho-physiological coherence.

In a Sanctum session a sophisticated finger sensor is used to measure HRV.  This physiological process information is quantified and displayed visually in real-time within a continuous graph format.  This allows the person to assess the information consciously, bring it to awareness and gain control over the stress reactions.  The person becomes empowered by learning how to manage stress and recover faster from stress reactions.  This greatly improves health and wellbeing.

Psycho-physiological coherence explained:

Psycho-physiological coherence is defined as sustained episodes of a high degree of stability in heart and respiratory rate, combined with and driven by positive emotions and mentality.

Small variations, between normal heart beats, occur with every in and out breath due to the effect on the heart of two major branches of the autonomic nervous system and decrease slightly with each in breath and increase slightly with each out breath.  These small beat-to-beat variations are referred to as heart rate variability (HRV).  Apart from the autonomic nervous system, HRV is also directly influenced by human emotional states and has become a dynamic measurement for heart health and stress biofeedback applications.

Scientific studies have established that when HRV is brought into a state of maximum stability, a heart state of maximum resilience and flexibility for systemic change, it causes a neural feedback loop from the heart to the brain and the rest of the autonomic nervous system, signaling that no stress situation exist and to proceed to function optimally, which as a knock-on effect allows the rest of the body systems e.g. immunity, hormone and digestion to also function optimally.

Mentally combining and driving this physiological coherent state with positive emotions, actively experienced around the heart area, result in a state of psycho-physiological coherence which enhance the effect of the optimum functioning neural feedback loop.

Actively increasing the duration of a psycho-physiological coherent state exponentially increase the functioning of the autonomic body systems.

Point of zero gravity explained:

Point of zero gravity in the context of a Sanctum session, is described as the fixed form of the ideal seating position, which ensures the most anatomically correct and beneficial body posture for the least pressure on the entire spine and every joint at all angles of reclining.

This is based on technology derived from a US NASA research project.  A NASA team of leading orthopaedic surgeons and scientists developed specialised recliners for the US space shuttles to ensure that the bodies of the astronauts recline and remain at a point of zero gravity.  This ensures the least pressure on all body parts and distributes weight evenly across the entire body, in order to withstand the massive gravitational force experienced during lift off and exiting the gravitational pull of the earth.

In a Sanctum session the majority of the health modalities are facilitated in a specialised recliner with the body at the point of zero gravity.  This alleviates pressure on all the spinal and joint components, relieves muscle strain, increase lung capacity, reduce pressure on the heart and increase blood oxygen levels due to improved systemic circulation.

This specific reclined position at the point of zero gravity greatly enhances the total effect of all the other additional health modalities incorporated and facilitated within a session.

Neural-brainwave-frequency entrainment explained:

Neural-brainwave-frequency entrainment is the process of passively assisting the human brain to follow a specific natural wave frequency, through the use of an auditory-, visual- stimulation system in order to decreasing or increasing mental activity for a specific desired result.

This process is applied primarily through the optic and secondary the auditory nerve through technology which uses specialised glasses, inset with light emitting diodes (LED’s) set at specific distances and angles from the eyes for optimal effect.  The LED’s flash at structured predetermined frequencies and is coupled with similarly structured tones delivered through headphones.

The structured predetermined frequencies and tones of the auditory-, visual- stimulation system are designed to match the natural frequency phases of the human brain, ranging from 0.5 to 3 Hertz for the delta or deep sleep phase, from 4 to 8 Hertz for the theta or active dream phase, from 8 to 12 Hertz for the alpha or relaxed awake phase and from 13 to 40 Hertz for the beta or alert learning phase.

In a Sanctum session tailor made programs are incorporated to suit individual needs and to match the overall intent of the entire session as a whole.  In addition to reducing and managing stress reactions in order to improve health and wellbeing, it can also be utilised to enhance cognitive functioning, improve memory and attention spans and increase mental performance.

This modality is usually applied together with other modalities to enhance the passive facilitation process.